A26912:603
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and…
A defence of the principles of love, which are necessary to the unity and concord of Christians and are delivered in a book called The cure of church-divisions ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1671
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. The other yet greater advantage that Satan findeth, to kill the Love of most, is SELFISHNESS; one selfish man thinks that he may well account him bad and odious, who is against his worldly wealth and honour: And another thinks him bad and odious, who is against his Learned or Religious reputation, and would detect his ignorance or vice. Another thinks him bad and odious, who is against his Opinions, and the words or manner of worshipping God, which he is confident are best; And he that hath once suffered spiritual pride to extol his own understanding and his piety, will make that so far the measure of his censures, that all shall be thought so far to swerve from Truth and Godliness as they swerve from him. But if we should suffer much by others, and that for a cause which we take to be the cause of God, how easy is it for selfishness to stir up those Passions, which shall blind our understandings, ⟨p. 149⟩so far as to see no good at all scarce in them that we suffer by, or to extenuate all that is Lovely in them; yea, to think hardly of almost all others of their judgement and party, for their sakes: And if we think we may once call them Persecutors, yea, or but such as Conform to the Persecutors ways, we think it […]yeth almost any thing which we say […] to make them odious: As th•se on the […] side think they are justified in all […] may say or do against m•n i• •hey […].
2. The other yet greater advantage that Satan findeth, to kill the Love of most, is SELFISHNESS; one selfish man thinks that he may well account him bad and odious, who is against his worldly wealth and honour: And another thinks him bad and odious, who is against his Learned or Religious reputation, and would detect his ignorance or vice. Another thinks him bad and odious, who is against his Opinions, and the words or manner of worshipping God, which he is confident are best; And he that hath once suffered spiritual pride to extoll his own understanding and his piety, will make that so far the measure of his censures, that all shall be thought so far to swerve from Truth and Godliness as they swerve from him. But if we should suffer much by others, and that for a cause which we take to be the cause of God, how easie is it for selfishness to stir up those Passions, which shall blind our understandings,